Talk:Carleton S. Coon

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North Africa[edit]

There should be more info here about Coon's role in North Africa, based on historical sources other than Coon's own recollections. Generally speaking, this article could do with more factual biographical emphasis, who he studied with, etc., with less space given to Coon's out-dated racial theorizing. Mballen (talk) 13:54, 16 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Coon was primarily known for his anthropological work. He was, after all, the president of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. His covert intelligence work was ancillary to that, but was nonetheless a reason for his sojourn in the Maghreb. Soupforone (talk) 16:56, 16 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Studied hieroglyphics at Andover?[edit]

Very dubious that a prep-school such as Andover would offer hieroglyphics. Latin and Ancient Greek were the standard curriculum at such prep-schools, it would be more accurate to say that "he excelled at classical languages" (if that was the case). Mballen (talk) 19:13, 16 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

At most it would have been cursory and not worth a mention. Even his study of classical languages is fairly trivial and we'd rarely say excelled. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Doug Weller (talk • contribs) 06:22, 17 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
And he did not study Egyptology with George Reisner, he took a freshman course with him, that's all. Someone was misreoresenting his education. Doug Weller talk 06:35, 17 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This link is interesting. Doug Weller talk 06:42, 17 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Lead is in no way a summary of the article[edit]

Really needs work Doug Weller talk 06:51, 17 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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Mediterranean "race" error[edit]

I recently corrected an error on this article which stated that Mediterraneans are generally characterized by "robust" features, by including links to the work of Carleton Coon and another anthropologist of his era (Hans Gunther).
I want to stress that I am not a believer in this kind of folk taxonomy or racial science of any kind, just clearing up facts about what these authors said about the Mediterranean "race".
Below, another quote from Carleton Coon about Mediterraneans from his book "Caravan - The Srory of the Middle East"--Hunan201p (talk) 14:18, 19 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

"A Mediterranean is a white man of variable stature - as whites go, usually short to medium; his bones are light, but strongly marked for muscle attachments if these muscles have been well developed through use. His legs are relatively long compared to his trunk, and his hands and feet rather small. His chest is relatively flat, his neck of medium length, his head of medium size, long-oval in shape with parallel sides; his face is small and delicate, with only slight bony ridges over the eyes. The upper part of his face is large in proportion to the lower part, so that when he is old his nose looks large for his jaw. Of all human beings the Mediterranean has the most human, the most highly evolved, masticatory apparatus. His teeth are small, and so are the muscles that operate his jaw. His face is narrow, and his nose consequently is often prominent when compared to the lower-bridged and flatter noses of wider or longer-jawed races in Europe and other parts of Africa and Asia."

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion[edit]

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Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 08:37, 8 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

White Supremacist?[edit]

I don't see how Dr. Coon was a racist, he didn't believe that Whites or "Caucasoids" were superior to other races, like I have already mentioned, I read his works (Races of Europe, Living Races of Man, & the Origin of Races), only because he developed, most likely, the best racial classification system for Caucasoids (including Europeans & Non-Europeans), & because he actually had a Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology, & most of his work was dedicated to racial classification, & because he happened to be a Old-Stock Cornish American, again, I'm a radical centrist, & halfway between Castizo & Mestizo, basically Harnizo or Chamizo, (mixed Spaniard & Indigenous Mexican).

The point of this question, is does Wikipedia a bias toward Racialists (the belief in biological races), or toward Right-Wingers & Centrists, or to people with Autism, or to mixed-race people, because I'm new here, I've expanded by anthropology work to Facebook, Quora, YouTube, Blogger, & now here, which all started in the biological anthropology forums (which are also mostly amateurs there), such as the Apricity Forum, Anthroscape, & ForumBioDiversity, & I know some of those forums have a right-leaning bias, unfortunately.

Dr. Coon's son wrote on this talk page, a few years before his death, talking on how his father was a great anthropologist, & was not a racist, but only a racialist, which there is a huge difference between racialism & racism.

Racism is the belief that someone dislike a certain race, ethnicity, or nationality of people.

I am aware, that this are very heated, touchy, & controversial topics, & I understand that Wikipedia's sources are now more scholarly, due to the misuse of Wikipedia since it's founding in 2001.

So, I wonder If we should just leave him as a racist, or simply just leave it blank, since he's been dead since 1981, & as race relations were worse in those days, I understand the current political climate could have an effect on scientists from the past as well.

Thank You. ExoticAspie — Preceding unsigned comment added by ExoticAspie (talk • contribs) 01:33, 21 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

According to reliable sources, "Coon's theories on race are widely rejected by modern anthropologists for unsubstantiated claims of European superiority to all other races". That makes him a white supremacist. Doug Weller talk 14:14, 21 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure about the author, but this paper[1] says "Such allegations of racism offended Coon, as Roe’s interview demonstrates, because he associated racism with exactly the sort of explicit political action he avoided. “He was not a racist in the sense that he wanted to discriminate actively against the underclasses,” write Milford Wolpoff and Rachel Caspari (Wolpoff & Caspari, 1997, p. 169), “but there is no doubt that he had absolutely no sense of social responsibility. In fact, he felt this diluted the objectivity that was necessary in science.” Coon did not, like Putnam, seek out facts to justify his fear and hatred, nor—even when assisting Putnam—did he see himself as an advocate for white social supremacy. He did believe, though, that white biological supremacy was an objective fact, at least in the traits most beneficial to modern humans. “Were the evolution of fruit flies a prime social and political issue,” he wrote in 1968, “Dobzhansky might easily find himself in the same situation in which he and his followers have tried to place me” (Coon, 1968, p. 275). Privately, Coon recognized that assertions of white supremacy offended his nonwhite associates, telling Roe that he suspected the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research would stop funding his work because its director of research Paul Fejos had “married a colored girl.” 63 (Lita Osmundsen, Fejos’ wife, was herself an anthropologist who would soon succeed Fejos as director of research [Douglas, 1986, p. 521].) “I’m sure that this thing isn’t going to make her very happy,” Coon continued. “I’ve got nothing against her, it’s just a sad fate.” And not that this affects what the article says, but I was told by someone who worked with him that he made racist comments. Doug Weller talk 14:24, 21 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Adding to the above, Dickey, Colin (2020). The Unidentified: Mythical Monsters, Alien Encounters, and Our Obsession with the Unexplained. New York: Viking. ISBN 978-0-525-55757-9., describes Coon as a "white supremacist Yeti enthusiast" (pg. 168). – Joe (talk) 14:45, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Joe, I'm sure you are well aware that a pop science book by a "creative writing professor" is far from a reliable source, particularly for an allegation as serious as this. You clearly have a vendetta against Coon and are willing to use your administrator heft to prosecute your personal/political biases at the expense of fairness, objectivity and neutrality. As you know my edits violated no wiki policies, and included information that would be par for the course in the bio of any scientist who didn't happen to have "controversial" theories. The only thing "wrong" with them was that they didn't contribute to the distorted view of the man presented by the article as you've written it, selectively including and leaving out completely pertinent and verifiable information (I reiterate, from the same sources you were happy to use for your own purposes) that doesn't contribute to your "blackwashing". Also, your or Doug's personal opinions on what makes someone a "white supremacist" are not relevant. This is Wikipedia, not your blog. Remember, OR includes synthesising information. I might decide to create articles about you deciding your views amounted to "black supremacy". If he didn't identify himself as such, and the clear consensus of reliable expert sources don't identify him as such, he can't be labelled as such. Ya hemos pasao (talk) 01:14, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Ya hemos pasao: I (partially) reverted your edits because Coon's inclusion in Category:White supremacists is clearly supported by the sources Doug and I have listed here, and others cited in the article body; because you edited the lead to give the impression that Coon's ideas were more mainstream than they were; added an unnecessary peacock adjective to the first sentence based on a single source; and inappropriately synthesised Coon's protest that he was not a racist into a paragraph discussing a significant POV that his work was useful for racists.
I haven't edited this article very much and don't think I've used my admin tools on it. Dickey is a reliable source—better than most currently used in the article because it's secondary—and could be used to expand the section on Coon's interest in yetis. At the moment it's only used to cite the uncontroversial fact that Coon and Putnam were related. Coon's relationship to white supremacy and segregationism is a little complex but not really in doubt. The article doesn't do a good job of describing it at the moment. It gives the impression (which I'm sure many racists would like to believe) that he was essentially a mainstream, respected scientist whose ideas went out of academic fashion and were retrospectively vilified. In reality, his anthropological theories were already far on the fringes of the discipline by the 1960s—his ideas would have been less out of place in the 1860s maybe—and given undue prominence because they were loudly cited by white supremacists trying to fight a rearguard action against desegregation. In public he maintained an arms-length relationship with the people who used his work this way, trying to maintain the image of an objective, apolitical scientists, but there are now ample sources that show he was closely involved with them behind-the-scenes, and that his personal views almost certainly aligned with white supremacy. – Joe (talk) 07:23, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Clearly have a vendetta against Coon and are willing to use your administrator heft to prosecute your personal/political biases at the expense of fairness, objectivity and neutrality Please see WP:FOC and WP:INVOLVED. Admin tools are irrelevant for content disputes. —PaleoNeonate – 16:17, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Primary sources[edit]

A lot of the article is original research citing primary sources like The Races of Europe and other Coon writings, but should instead reflect the interpretation of an independent source. —PaleoNeonate – 06:45, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Adding: it's a long-standing issue, it seems to have started around 2006. —PaleoNeonate – 07:19, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, the Racial theories section in particular has far too much 'in-universe' material that would be better suited to a scientific racist fan wiki. – Joe (talk) 08:24, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

photo caption controversy[edit]

The article mentions the Chinese professor / Australian Aborigine photo caption in Coon's book without explaining that this caption was what catalyzed controversy among the young anthropologists of the 1960s who found Coon's approach hopelessly antiquated and somewhat objectionable... AnonMoos (talk) 14:43, 12 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@AnonMoos: Interesting. Do you have any references? – Joe (talk) 14:53, 12 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I thought I had read about it in a Stephen Jay Gould essay, but I'm not having much luck finding it with searches. AnonMoos (talk) 22:24, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Pseudo-scientist?[edit]

Hello everyone, I recently made an edit in which I question the credibility of the text passage in the article‘s Entry. I justified this edit with the fact that the said passage does not reflect the content of the sources. I was reverted to the contrary claim. When asked, I did not get a clear answer, but a friendly advice to a non-existing talk-thread and to use the discussion page for futher questions. My question to the audience now is: why is the claim of the said passage not to be found in the sources? 

* “considered pseudoscientific in modern anthropology“

And why are ref 2 and ref 3 applied to this non-existent statement?

The only information I could obtain from the sources was that during his lifetime, his book The Origins of Races (1962) gained much criticism from his opponents and has been subject to contemporary anthropological debate. That’s all. Kind regards. —FalseRemover (talk) 14:18, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Coon's theories on race were widely disputed in his lifetime is no doubt supported by the sources. Your words "his opponents" are superfluous, since if someone criticises you heavily, he is by definition your opponent. I don't understand what subject of contemporary anthropological debate is supposed to mean. If you want to say, "object of today's debate", that is surely wrong. If you want to say, "object of the debate in his days", that is just a repetition of what has already been said. --Rsk6400 (talk) 14:45, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The subject of contemporary anthropological debate wording is flatly wrong. There is no mainstream debate about Coon's racial theories. They were rejected decades ago – pretty much as soon as he published them. – Joe (talk) 14:54, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for opening a discussion here FalseRemover. This passage is in the lead section, which is supposed to be an accessible summary of the rest of the article. So while we do sometimes include direct citations for statements in the lead that could be challenged (like here), we try to keep them to a minimum, and it's important to bear in mind that the verification for these statements is also found in the relevant sections of the article body and the references cited there.
The sentence you changed includes two claims, both of which summarise elements of #Debates on race and #Reception and legacy:
  • Coon's theories on race were widely disputed in his lifetime.... The Origins of Races was Coon's primary presentation of his racial theories and, as Jackson 2001 and the other references in these sections show, essentially no other professional anthropologists agreed with his conclusions at the time of its publications (though some praised other aspects of the book). It's not true to say that only the book was criticised—the book simply represents the fullest account of Coon's thinking on race—nor that the criticism was confined to "opponents". As Rsk6400 has already pointed out this is already a bit of a non-sequitur, and the context is not one of "sides" but the reception of his work by his academic peers and contemporaries. I'd also object to substituting in the word "criticism" here, which weakens the meaning and suggests others simply didn't like Coon's book, when in fact it was the content of his theories and conclusions that were judged to be scientifically unsupportable.
  • ...and are considered pseudoscientific in modern anthropology. This summarises the contemporary standing of Coon's theories. As I said above, it's unsupportable to say there is debate: nobody in the mainstream lends any credence to them. As for "pseudoscientific", the Collopy source discusses the use of this concept on both sides of the 50s/60s race debate with more nuance, but the conclusion is that Coon lost the "demarcation" battle (emphasis mine):
Coon successfully produced a model of the evolution of races that maintained these intellectual (and crypto‐political) commitments—but he did not persuade his anthropological colleagues to adopt it (Coon, 1981, p. 204).
Although Dobzhansky's critique of Coon was compelling, it was not scientifically definitive, leaving Coon with plausible counterarguments. What made Coon's work marginal was that anthropologists generally agreed with Dobzhansky about the political responsibilities of scientists. Proclamations of white supremacy that had been commonplace in the field were becoming exceptional, and the segregationism with which Coon's work was associated was particularly abhorrent to his fellow anthropologists.
As explicit white supremacists like Putnam, Garrett, and George embraced The Origin of Races, other scientists distanced themselves from it. “Scientists will always demarcate,” argues Michael Gordin, “because part of what science is is an exclusion of some domains as irrelevant, rejected, outdated, or incorrect” (Gordin, 2012b, p. 209). This is exactly what Washburn did in his presidential address at the American Anthropological Association's 1962 meeting, when he announced that “The Origin of Races is a reversion to 19th‐century typological thinking and is of no use to the profession whatsoever” (DeVore, 1992, p. 422).
It was in this address that Coon's reputation as an outmoded racialist anthropologist became firmly established and The Origin of Races excluded from the anthropological canon. Washburn left his attack out of the published version of his paper, which Coon rightly suspected was “watered down,” instead writing merely that “a contrary view has recently been expressed by Coon in The Origin of Races” (Washburn, 1963, p. 521). If his address insisted that The Origin be remembered as an irrelevant, rejected, outdated, and incorrect book on race rather than a contested and appreciated one on evolution, his published paper suggested that the boundary‐work involved was a matter of simple scholarly disagreement.
Establishing a scientific consensus that Coon's work was typological and racist required not only carefully reasoned argument but also moral judgment and heated invective, as did the scientific study of race and the collegial relationships that developed around it more generally. Demarcation involved emotional as well as intellectual labor. If the science of race in particular was never isolated from its politics, it was also never isolated from the sentiments and relationships of its practitioners.
There are many other sources that directly label Coon's theories on race as "pseudoscience" (e.g. [2][3][4]p94, 97), but I still think that Collopy is the best one to use in the lead because it is an entire paper on Coon and pseudoscience, bearing in mind that citations in the lead are supposed to be exemplary (WP:CITELEAD: to aid readers in locating sources for challengeable material) rather than exhaustive.
As you can see from the discussions above this article is not in the best shape and it its coverage of Coon's contemporary reputation and his involvement in the 1960s debate on race and civil rights. If we had better sections on that this statement in the lead might be more clearly justified to readers, but I still think it is a fair summary of the existing text and sources. – Joe (talk) 15:44, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. The views he espoused about race and human biological diversity were considered scientific then, but are now considered pseudoscientific. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 16:04, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
considered pseudoscientific in modern anthropology strikes me as a pretty uncontroversial statement. Guettarda (talk) 16:43, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I am not sure where to answer, so I write here. Concerning Collopy, I have to strongly disagree with you, because Collopy treated the term "pseudo-science" as an allegation from the so called left-wing or liberal point of view. This is again confirmed by your eg.2 (Perrin Selcer):
"Most disturbingly for liberal anthropologists, the new generation of racist “pseudoscience”..."
There is basically no direct citation from a neutral point of view, let alone by modern anthropologists. This is the reason why Collopy and Perrin Selcer use quotation marks "" to distance themselves from that point of view. Anything else can only be regarded as misinterpretation and falsification (don’t know which WP policy applies here).
Going on with Paul Spickard, a non-anthropologist historian, one can immediately see his liberal/left-wing background on his wiki article. James Loewen, a non-anthropologist sociologist, published his book in a left-wing non-scientific publisher: The New Press. And your last source (from Springer) doesn't even mention pseudoscience.
Paul Spickard, as a non-specialist, appears to be the only academic source citing Coon as a psuedo-scientist, but I think this case would apply to WP:WEIGHT due to his one-sided position and controversial ties.
Question: Jackson discusses Dobzhanksy‘s “Unacademical“ debates, does he support this view? No, because this statement belongs to the right-wing proponent Carleton Coon. But this is the logic how you used Collopy, and this is at the same time the major failure here.
All in all, that pseudo claim needs WP:EXCEPTIONAL. —-FalseRemover (talk) 12:55, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I just provided a long quote from Collopy that describes how Coon's theories came to be accepted as pseudoscience by his peers, and four additional sources that directly label them pseudoscience, so I'm not sure how to respond to your assertion that there is "no direct citation from a neutral point of view". Wikipedia articles are expected to be written from a neutral point of view; our sources don't have to be. NPOV here meaning representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources, not sanitising negative views or engaging in bothsidesism based on our guesses about the political orientation of the author. There's nothing exceptional about the claim that Coon's work on race was pseudoscientific. Practically the only time he is mentioned in modern scholarship is as an examplar of mid-20th century scientific racism, and scientific racism is universally regarded as pseudoscientific. – Joe (talk) 15:08, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Joe, you transport that allegation of pseudoscience from the 60‘s to the modern time. Historians who quote these allegations are neither puting new statements nor can they be regarded as „modern anthropology“, that’s another misinterpretation/falsification. This is basic source analysis: there is primary and secondary literature. You basically imported that hot-debate of the 1960‘s (primary literature) to our time by citing modern authors (secondary literature) who do not share these attacks. They just summarised the past dispute by providing an author‘s own thinking based on primary sources ... making analytic or evaluative claims about them (see WP:SECONDARY). And, of course, a book review too can be an opinion, summary or scholarly review! But, please, cite it properly without self-interpretation. As for Collopy, one can clearly see it’s neutral manner: no siding, just simple descriptions of what happened in the 1960‘s without any form of judgmental formulations (-> rem. the use of “...“).

I am quite confident I might find 3rd opinions who see it. Spickard, as a non-specialist modern representative, is standing alone with his pseudoscience claim so far. The dispute is basically: Social Sciences VS. Biology, nothing changed since 70 years. If you don’t mind I‘d like to ask for a 3rd opinion assistance. WP:SYNTH I think reflects my points best.

Exceptional claims, such as pseudoscience allegations, require exceptional sources, hence also WP:EXCEPTIONAL applies here, since Paul Spickard is the only modern and living person citing Coon as a pseudoscientist. The rest of the sources you have provided for your position, as I said, make no such allegations. No academic review came to such a conclusion. The conclusion to which you came is solely based on self-declared a priori knowledge.

Important: as long as Paul Spickard has no degree in anthropology or comparable sciences, his allegation can only be regarded as belonging to a non-specialist view relying heavily on rumors [of past decades] and personal opinion. Such views cannot be used for citing contentious claims about third parties, which includes claims against .. , persons living or dead (see: WP:QUESTIONABLE). I hope you understand my motivation, and I want to give you time to insert inline citations (as per WP:BURDEN). Cheers. —FalseRemover (talk) 08:52, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I've added the sources, with direct quotes, to the lead sentence. These are reliable sources and your quibbling with the training or political orientation of the authors has no basis in Wikipedia policy. Spickard and Loewen are both distinguished historians specialising in American racism. Regal is a historian of science specialising in pseudoscience (the author of Pseudoscience: A Critical Encyclopedia). Selcer is a historian of science, writing in Current Anthropology, in a paper about racism in anthropology in the era Coon worked. In context, his use of quotation marks around "pseudoscience" seems to indicate that he is quoting/paraphrasing the opinion of anthropologists, not disagreement – in any case, that doesn't matter, because the point of the source is to verify that anthropologists think Coon's work was pseudoscientific, not Selcer personally. As I've explained, this is not in any way an exceptional claim. So, to summarise, we have:
  • An entire peer reviewed article tracing the history of how Coon's racial theories came to be considered pseudoscience shortly after their publication.
  • Four additional reliable sources, published in the last 15 years, and authored by historians of science specialising in race and/or pseudoscience, that directly label Coon's ideas on race "pseudoscience".
  • Of all the sources I've consulted to expand the article recently, I haven't seen a single one published in the past 40 years that gives any credence at all to Coon's work on race.
This seems to me to be more than enough to support the straightforward, relatively uncontroversial statement that Coon's theories on race are "considered pseudoscientific in modern anthropology". At this point I'd invite you to point to any mainstream scientific source that treats Coon's racial theories seriously, otherwise there doesn't seem to be any basis for further discussion. – Joe (talk) 13:02, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
In Wikipedia, flat Earth theories, Coon's race theories, and the like may be called pseudoscientific. Thank you, Joe Roe, for your work and patience. --Rsk6400 (talk) 14:21, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I am sorry, you didn't provided anything so far. Your are also not allowed to tell me that I am "quibbling" (as per WP:DISCFAIL). Please, preserve the civil manner. It's all nice that this or that historian is specialized in whatever science section, everything fine, but they don't support the "pseudoscience" entry in the article, in no sense. You also put words into my argumentation which I didn't even used. I never said that Selcer is in disagreement with 1960's liberals, in contrast, he is not taking side at all. I quote him again:

  • "Most disturbingly for liberal anthropologists, the new generation of racist “pseudoscience”..."
  1. emphasizing: for liberal anthropologists
  2. emphasizing: the use of quotation marks for "pseudoscience"

You inconsistently try to use the neutral point of view of Selcer to support a totally non-existent circumstance. Selcer and the "source" are not two different entities but one, he is actually the author of the source. This approach totally runs into contradiction.

To summarise, we have:

  • An entire peer reviewed article neutrally summarizing the history of how Coon's racial theories came to be in conflict with the political interists of several personalities of the 1960's. No more, no less.
  • Three additional reliable sources that briefly make neutral reference to the history of how Coon's racial theories came to be in conflict with the political interists of several personalities of the 1960's. Same as above, they do not directly label Coon's ideas on race as "pseudoscience". There is no such allegation, not even one shred of evidence to modern anthropology.
  • One additional unreliable source (Spickard), mainly due to his unreflective reference and non-specialised occupation.
  • All additional sources, mentioned above, are misused to synthesize published material (WP:SYNTH).
  • Quoting credence directly from the article itself: William W. Howells, writing in a 1989 article, noted that Coon's research was "still regarded as a valuable source of data", see: Carleton_S._Coon#Posthumous.

If you don’t mind I‘d like to initiate a 3rd opinion assistance request. I don’t think we will come to a common concensus here. Kind regards. --FalseRemover (talk) 16:13, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You don't need to ask my permission for a third opinion (although technically it would be a fifth, since Maunus, Guettarda, and Rsk6400 have already said they support the existing wording). There are instructions on how to request outside input at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. – Joe (talk) 16:31, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
As an aside, regarding this: William W. Howells, writing in a 1989 article, noted that Coon's research was "still regarded as a valuable source of data" - that doesn't have much bearing on whether Coon's work should be described as pseudoscientific. Data, unless falsified, can still be useful, regardless of the validity of the conceptual model the original compiler used. Guettarda (talk) 17:37, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, reviewers at the time and since were almost unanimous that the data in the book was an accomplishment, it was the conclusions that were disputed and what we're referring to in the lead. Also, 1989 is no longer so "recent"... – Joe (talk) 17:57, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Also, 1989 is no longer so "recent"... You calling me old? :D It's funny, actually - I believe it was around 1989 when I discovered Coons' book on a dusty library shelf. Guettarda (talk) 18:11, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Joe: “ I haven't seen a single one published in the past 40 years that gives any credence at all to Coon's work on race.“
Me: Howells 1989 (undefeated)
Guettarda: “1989 is no longer recent“

Come on guys, we are not at the bazaar. Btw, you forgot Jackson, he talks about “unacademic responses to Coon“, which is even lower than pseudoscience, just saying. Anyway, I‘ll try the dispute noticeboard then. Till next month or so. Cheers. —FalseRemover (talk) 20:16, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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